Brightcove Offers HTML5 Video for iPad

Brightcove supports the HTML5 standard as a means of delivering high-quality video on mobile devices such as Apple's iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch despite their lack of Flash support.

Brightcove has come up with a
means of delivering high-quality video on popular devices such as Apple's iPad,
iPhone and iPod Touch despite their lack of Flash support, by supporting the HTML5
standard.
Brightcove, which provides an online video platform, on March 29
"announced the Brightcove Experience for HTML5, a framework for publishing
and delivering high-quality, interactive and advertising-supported Web video
experiences for HTML5-compatible devices. The new platform solution, available
free of charge to more than 1,000 Brightcove customers in 42 countries, will
enable media companies and marketers around the world to easily expand the
reach of their online video initiatives to popular consumer devices" such
as Apple's, the company said..

In a blog
post on the announcement, Jeff Whatcott, senior vice president of marketing
at Brightcove, said:

"As commercial availability of
the Apple iPad draws near, we have been getting a lot of inquiries from
customers looking for guidance on what they need to do to deliver great video
experiences on these devices that exclusively support the HTML5 approach to
video. These customers are excited about the possibilities of the iPad, but
they also have concerns about what it will take to deliver great video
experiences in this environment. They want to know what the tradeoffs and
gotchas are, and what we're doing to help them navigate this new
landscape."

Moreover, Whatcott, formerly an executive at Adobe, the maker of Flash,
added:

"One of the things you won't see
from Brightcove is the Flash-bashing rhetoric that you may hear elsewhere. Our
work to support HTML5 is not about weakening Flash, it is about pragmatically
solving problems for our customers. Flash is and will continue to be a critical
platform for us and for our customers. The fact is, most online video is
experienced through Flash today, and that will continue to be the case for the
foreseeable future. We have a very strong strategic alliance with Adobe, and we
continue to believe that it is in our interests and the interests of our
customers to be at the forefront of innovation on around the Flash Platform.
Our work with HTML5 is in addition to, not instead of, our work with
Flash."

"The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 provides support for intelligent
device detection, playlist rendering and playback of H.264-encoded video
content," the company's announcement said. "Customers are using the
Brightcove Experience for HTML5 today to build iPad-ready Websites. Over the
course of this year, Brightcove will expand the Brightcove Experience for HTML5
to include full support for customization and branding of the player
environment, advertising, analytics, social sharing and other capabilities
currently found in Brightcove experience solutions for other platforms."
The announcement continued:

"Brightcove customers already
taking advantage of the Brightcove Experience for HTML5 solution to produce
iPad-ready websites include The New York Times and Time Inc. The New York Times
Company is a Brightcove investor."

"Our customers want to be able to deliver their video content to every
screen without sacrificing the quality, interactivity and monetization
capabilities they have come to expect from the Brightcove platform," Brightcove
CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement.
"The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 fills the gap between the current
playback capabilities of the emerging standard and what our customers need to
operate successful online video businesses."
"Brightcove is committed to innovating on top of standards and driving
them forward," said Brightcove CTO Bob
Mason. "The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 gives us the opportunity to
take all of the knowledge we've gained about real-world success with online
video and apply it to this new open standard."
Describing the opportunities for publishers afforded by the Brightcove
Experience, Whatcott said:

"For publishers who are used to
building video experiences by cobbling together technologies on their own, the
requirement to support HTML5 in parallel with whatever they are doing with
Flash means unwelcome additional cost and complexity for their web development
teams. However, as Richard Wong of Accel put it, In Mobile, Fragmentation is Forever. Deal With It.
Publishers really have no choice if they want to continue to maximize their
audience. Dealing with web client fragmentation is going to be the reality for
the foreseeable future. So much for reaping savings from the death of IE6.
DIY-centric shops will be kept busy just making their video work and risk
crowding out work that could make it great.
For publishers who are using the
Brightcove online video platform, the outlook is much more promising. We are
investing to make it possible for them to deliver both Flash and HTML5 video
experiences with equivalent capability without requiring a lot of extra work.
That is our vision for the Brightcove Experience for HTML 5. Being able to
target HTML5 devices without sacrificing the ability to customize the playback
environment, gather detailed analytics, manage multi-bit rate delivery, and
monetize their video with advanced advertising, etc. is where we are headed.
Our customers rely on us to reduce the cost and complexity of making video part
of their online strategy, and we intend to deliver on that expectation."

The company's statement concluded:

"The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 is the latest in a series of
product innovations that deliver on Brightcove's vision of empowering media
publishers to easily distribute high-quality video across any screen. Today's announcement
follows last month's release of the Brightcove Mobile Experience for Flash
Player 10.1 to support video for Google Android, Symbian S60, Palm webOS,
Windows Mobile and Research in Motion BlackBerry. Brightcove has previously
announced distribution capabilities for Internet-connected TV platforms and
devices, including Yahoo! TV Widgets, Boxee, Roku and VUDU.
For more information on the Brightcove Experience for HTML5, visit http://www.brightcove.com/en/video-platform/solutions/html5."

Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.